World War 1 museum opens near St Petersburg

Aug 25 2014

Irina Kruzhílina

specially for RIR

Russia’s first museum that is entirely dedicated to the First World War opened at the former imperial residence of Tsarskoye Selo.

Source: ITAR-TASS

The first museum in Russia dedicated entirely to Russia’s
participation in the First World War has opened in Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), just
outside St. Petersburg. Three years and 292,000,000 rubles ($8 million) were
spent on the restoration of the town’s Martial Chamber, which now houses an
exhibition titled ‘Russia in the Great War’.

The history of the museum has its roots in the time of the
last Russian tsar, Nicholas the Second. In 1911, during the celebration of the
bicentennial of Tsarskoye Selo, the imperial family’s country residence,
Nicholas II received a priceless gift – a collection of prints, paintings,
icons, and maps that told the story of the military history of Russia since
ancient times.

This gift was presented to the emperor by Yelena
Tretyakova, the widow of the brother of the creator of the famous Tretyakov
Gallery in Moscow. Nicholas was greatly pleased by the gift and gave an order for
a special building to be constructed for the Military Archive of Russia, a
museum to the country’s military glory. Tretyakova donated her own money for
the construction of the Martial Chamber.

From the first days of Russia’s participation in the First
World War, trophies began to arrive from the front that would later make up the
majority of the museum’s collection. It was therefore decided to rename the
museum the Museum of the Great War.

The sovereign’s Martial Chamber was completed in early 1917
but in 1918 it was closed down by the Bolsheviks. “It is difficult to imagine
how Tretyakova may have felt. She had spent almost her whole life bringing
together the collection and a large part of her fortune on the construction of
the museum that lasted all of a year,” says Olga Taratynova, the director of
the Tsarskoye Selo Museum Preserve, “and no one knows what happened to her
after that. She just disappeared.”

The Martial Chamber building was returned to the Tsarskoye
Selo Museum Preserve only in 2010 and it was immediately decided to restore it
and re-open the Museum of the Great War.

Planes, uniforms, and a sentimental telegram

The centerpiece of the museum exhibition is a model of a French
Nieuport-17 fighter airplane attached to the ceiling. The plane was used
extensively in World War I. Worn frescos that were found under a layer of
plaster during the restoration are visible on the vaulted ceiling.

Source: ITAR-TASS

The collection includes a host of military uniforms,
photographs, weapons, and items used in military life, as well as all kinds of
documents. “Costumes are the most attractive part of any museum’s exhibition,”
says Alexei Rogatnev, a senior researcher at the Tsarskoye Selo Museum Preserve.
“They are not two-dimensional images but three-dimensional objects that attract
visitors’ attention. Costumes convey the atmosphere of the time, of the
military life, very well.”

The military uniforms belonging to members of the imperial
family, each of whom had his own subordinate regiment of about 4,000 soldiers,
are showcased in one of the halls.

The museum houses a great rarity – the standard of tsarist
Russia, a black, yellow, and white flag. The fact is that keeping this banner
was punishable by execution until the end of World War II, so very few crested
flags have survived down to this day.

On a small screen attached to the wall there is a piece of
correspondence between Nicholas II and Wilhelm II – a telegram sent shortly
before the outbreak of hostilities in which the Russian Tsar requested the
German Kaiser to prevent the impending war, signing “Niki” to remind him of the
friendship binding them. For now, only Russian speakers will be able to read
the telegram – the captions and historical information in the museum, displayed
on large sensory monitors, are currently only in Russian. The English versions
will be ready within the next six months.

A frying pan to ward off a bullet

Among the items displayed is a regular cast iron skillet;
pilots used to place them under their seats in order to protect themselves from
bullets. There are photographs of dogs and horses in gas masks as well as the
gas masks themselves, which were developed in Russia just in time for World War
I by scientist Nikolai Zelinsky.

There is even a genuine Ford automobile from the time of
the war – an exclusive model of the Ford Model T produced by the American Ford
Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. Wear and tear over the years mean that few examples
of this model have survived to the present day.

In the early 20th century, a new type of troops
appeared in the Russian army – motorized troops. At the time of the start of
the First World War, the army had five automobile companies and six separate
road teams (for servicing the light auto transport of the staff and institutions
of the Military Department) and one training company.

There were supposed to have been two automobile companies
and a motorcycle division in the army, and the same number of automobile
companies was to have been kept in the front's reserve. In the service of the
Russian army there were trucks and medical and staff vehicles produced by the
Ford Motor Company.

By November 1917, the Russian army already had 22 separate
automobile companies and nearly 10,000 automobiles. The composition of the one
displayed in the exhibition suggests that it was produced no earlier than 1908
and no later than 1914.

There are also portraits of the Knights of the Order of St.
George on show in the Martial Chamber. The highest military decoration in the
Russian Empire, the Order of St. George accepted not only noblemen but also
ordinary soldiers for their courage and valor. It was during the First World
War that the term "mass heroism" was first conceived in Russia, and
the Order of St. George was awarded so often that votes had to be taken within
a regiment on whose portrait should be in the gallery.

Meanwhile, one and a half million Russians were awarded the
Cross of St. George (the medal for military merit and bravery for the lower
ranks) during World War I.